Psalm 55:22: “Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain you: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”
When I read this verse during a live stream service from my kitchen, I was holding a glass of water in my hand. Actually, the glass was only filled about half-way. I asked the congregation about their observation of my glass of water. They might have presumed, and you might presume that I was looking for the answer to: “Is it half-full or half-empty?”
Most of us are probably familiar with this analogy of how we think: Some will see the glass as being half-empty, and others will see it as being half-full, illustrating whether we tend to be pessimistic or optimistic. You may take a second to think about which one you are, but this is not what I am asking.
Rather, I am asking: “How heavy is this glass of water?”
Do you think it weighs 4 ounces? 6 ounces? 7 or 8 ounces? 16 ounces? Consider how much the glass weighs.
I had the viewers post their answers in the comments as I read some aloud. Then I said, “Okay, everyone, please stop posting your comments and listen to what I am about to say:
The weight doesn’t matter—what matters is how long I hold it.
If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem.
If I hold it for an hour, my arm will begin to ache as my muscles cramp.
If I hold it for a day, my whole arm will feel numb and paralyzed.
In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change.
But the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.
In the same way, the stresses and worries of life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a little while, and nothing happens. Think about them longer, and they begin to press you. And if you think about them all the time, you will feel paralyzed and incapable of doing anything.
What I’m saying to you is—Put the glass down!
Cast your burden upon the Lord! He will sustain you. He will never suffer you to be moved. The Hebrew word for “moved” means “to be greatly shaken, to let fall.” So we could say, He will never let us be shaken out of our place of safety and protection. He will never let us fall into a place of hopelessness. We may even feel helpless, but the child of God is never hopeless!
But this is contingent on you and me casting our burdens upon Him. You must put the glass down.
Peter said in 1Peter 5:7: “Casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you.” The Greek word for “care” means “anxiety” and more specific, “distracting anxieties.” I think it’s safe to say that we are all quite distracted by the pandemic plaguing the world, and equally by the economic impact it is having on the nation and people’s everyday lives. The media has inundated our senses with non-stop coverage of the Covid-19 virus. We are more than a little distracted. But if we continue to carry these things on our minds, we will become overwhelmed, fearful, and unable to cope.
We cannot carry this burden indefinitely, and yet we have no idea how long the siege will last. We must put the glass down and cast our burden on the Lord. We must cast our cares and anxieties on Him.
Paul said in Colossians 3:15: “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also you are called in one body, and be you thankful.” This is written in the imperative mood, which is a command. In the Greek text, the term “let” means “to make a decision”—we have to decide to let God’s peace rule in our hearts. Interestingly, both “let & rule” are from the same Greek root, and in this case, means “to be an umpire or referee.” As sports lovers of one kind or another, we all know what an umpire does: He makes decisions about plays, and once he has made a decision, his ruling stands. Regardless of who doesn’t like it, or who protests, what the umpire says, goes! And he has the power to throw antagonists out of the game.
When God’s peace is the umpire of our hearts, He calls the shots and throws out anything that challenges our peace. Throw it out! Cast it out!
Amazon’s Reveal
A few years ago, Amazon released a list of its most popular passages from its most popular online books. One of those, the E-Bible, had one passage of two verses highlighted more than any other. What do you think these two verses were? What did the readers of the E-Bible highlight more than any other Scriptures in the Bible?
Philippians 4:6-7: “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
The better translation of the old English word “careful” is “anxious”—be anxious for nothing. It means “to be troubled, fretful, and worried.” The number one problem that even believers often face is anxiety, but we also have the remedy: the peace of God that passes understanding.
I call it “unsurpassable peace”—to rise above, go over the top. It is the divine peace that neutralizes anxiety, worry, fretfulness, and fear. But we must activate it by prayer and supplication. While they both mean to pray, “supplicate” means to be specific—make specific requests about the thing that is disturbing your peace. This is how you cast your burdens on the Lord.
And don’t forget “with thanksgiving,” because thanksgiving is the stamp on your envelope of prayer!
This peace shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. The Greek word for “keep” is a military term meaning “to protect by military guard, to prevent hostile invasion.” Paul was well acquainted with military guards, having been under their watch for several years. He was referring to a guard standing on duty at the city gates. He controlled who entered and who left. Most importantly, he kept out enemies.
Picture a sentinel standing at the door of your heart, deciding who may enter and who may not. When anxiety and fear try to enter into your emotions and thoughts, God’s divine peace will not let them intrude into this sacred place where His perfect love rules.
We have a part to play, and that is to purposefully decide what we will think about.
Have you ever tried to stop thinking? Go ahead—right now, close your eyes and try not to think about anything.
Okay—did it work? Were you able to completely stop thinking? Or did you find yourself thinking about trying not to think?
Our peace is directly tied to our thinking, and we cannot stop thinking, so we must direct our thoughts what to think.
Paul gave us a Menu for Our Minds in verses 8-9:
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
(It would be a good idea while you have time on your hands, to do a word study of these 8 things. The app I love to use is The Blue Bible.)
Paul continued: “Those things which you have both learned and received, and heard and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”
If anyone had a tumultuous life it was Paul. You name it, and he had been through it. Yet this letter to the Philippians, written from prison, is his most joyful of all! So he said: “Take a page from my life experiences and see you can overcome with God’s unsurpassable peace!”
In this well-known and well-loved verse, Paul wrote to Timothy in 2Tim.1:7: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
The Greek word for “sober” means not to be out of control like someone who is intoxicated—but to have self-restraint. Once you open the door of your mind to the enemy’s fiery darts of anxiety and fear, you lose control, and your peace leaves. Inward pressure leads to oppression, and oppression can lead to obsession when the mind is under continual attack. This is a terrible state to be in.
On the other hand, when you possess God’s unsurpassable peace, the whole world around you can seem to be crumbling, but you remain at peace, confident in God’s keeping power.
David wrote in Psalm 119:165: “Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing shall offend them.”
The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon you…. Because he trusts in you.”
In both these verses, we see that our peace is directly tied to our minds and what we think on. God has given human beings the ability to observe our own minds of what and how we think. He has given His born-again children the power to change our thinking: “Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2Cor.10:5).
Cast them down! Put the glass down!
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